The Nvidia Shield is almost certainly more important to Google than it is to Nvidia. After the failure of Google TV—in part thanks to its lacklustre UI and poor developer support—its follow-up Android TV needed to do better. Unfortunately, that hasn't quite happened. Sure, Google's own Nexus Player is a fine piece of hardware, and Razer's Forge TV has its charms, but neither sports the flagship specs, nor the feature set of Nvidia's sleek black box. There's no doubt that the Shield is the best Android TV device money can buy, but like all Android TV devices, it comes with a few compromises.

But let's start with the good stuff. Where the Nexus Player sported an odd, if largely inoffensive hockey puck design, the Shield is a thing of beauty. It's slightly bigger in terms of footprint than your typical smart TV box at 25mm in height, 210mm in length, and 120mm in depth, but its sleek design made up of sharp angles and a subtle LED light strip just looks darn cool. The mix of glossy and matt plastics helps with the aesthetics, too, although, like seemingly all consumer electronics these days, it's a magnet for fingerprints. Fortunately, with the Shield placed under a TV, you likely won't be handling it all that often.

The Shield can be positioned horizontally or vertically, but it's a wee bit wobbly in its vertical position unless you purchase a separate stand for a substantial £24.99. One word of advice if you do take the plunge, though: Nvidia has used some sort of black magic to create what might just be the stickiest rubber coating in existence and applied it to the bottom of the stand. More often than not it simply wouldn't budge from the surface it was on when I needed to move it, and I ended up having to pry it up with a fish slice.

Round the back of the Shield is a vent for its internal fan, which—even under full load—wasn't audible; a micro SD slot for storage expansion, which will come in particularly handy if you pick up the 16GB version; two USB 3.0 ports for peripherals or external storage; an Ethernet port; an HDMI 2.0 port with HDCP 2.2 for 4K 60 FPS video; and a socket for the included power adaptor. Powering it all is Nvidia's Tegra X1 ARM-based processor and GPU, which boasts 256 CUDA cores, a memory clock of 1600MHz for its 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM, memory bandwidth that runs at 25.6GB/s, and 256KB of L2 cache.

Given Nvidia's prowess in the desktop GPU market, it comes as little surprise that the X1's GPU—which is based on the company's desktop Maxwell architecture—packs quite the performance punch. Coupled with the similarly sprightly 64-bit ARM CPU with four Cortex A57 big cores and four A53 little cores, the X1 is one of the most powerful chips in an Android device today. Google has even given the chip its seal of approval by using it in its upcoming Pixel C tablet. Performance is helped by the fact that in the Shield the X1 isn't constrained by battery or the poor thermal dissipation of a smaller chassis, allowing it to run at full speed for longer without throttling.

Included in the box with the Shield is one of Nvidia's Shield controllers. It's not exactly the most attractive looking lump of plastic out there and is noticeably chunkier and heavier than both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers, but it remains oddly comfortable to use. Nvidia promises up to 40 hours of battery life, and while I can't verify this exactly, I have only charged the controller up once since the start of testing five days ago—and it still has half its power left. In addition to the standard d-pad, face buttons, analogue sticks, shoulder buttons, triggers, a microphone for voice commands, and a micro-USB port for charging, the controller also sports some Android specific features. There's a capacitive back button, home button, and start button, along with a touchpad and volume control along the bottom.

While it's nice to have these buttons, I do wish they were actual buttons rather than capacitive surfaces. Not only would that feel better when jumping from the traditional buttons, but it would also help prevent any accidental presses, which happen all too often during gameplay. Also, the d-pad isn't great. Nvidia isn't alone in this regard, but seriously, it's 2015: can everyone please just stop making crappy, mushy d-pads? On a more positive note, there's a headphone jack on top that you can route all of the Shield's audio through, which is great for when you don't want to disturb the rest of the household when watching a film or playing a game.

Not included in the box is the Bluetooth-powered Shield Remote, a thin sliver of black plastic and brushed black aluminium that sells for an outrageous £39.99. It's a simple affair, with a four-way circle button at the top, home and back buttons, a capacitive volume control strip at the bottom, and a microphone button in the middle for activating voice commands. There's also a micro USB port for charging, along with a headphone jack for private listening. Though I personally found it to be a bit too thin for comfort, the Shield Remote does its job admirably, even if the price is far too high for what you get.

That Nvidia bundles a controller rather than a remote in with the Shield speaks volumes about what it hopes most people use the device for. The company stopped at calling the Shield a console—unceremoniously dropping it from the name just before its US launch—but it's clear that gaming is the focus above media playback.